Red Bank Veterinary Hospital

Clinical Studies in Oncology At Red Bank Veterinary Hospital

The Oncology Department at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital uses a multimodality approach to treat your pet’s cancer. We combine traditional therapies (primarily surgery, radiation therapy and chemotherapy) with novel therapies such as biological therapy and immunotherapy. Our oncology service offers state-of-the-art cancer care and our objectives are two fold: first to provide our patients with the best possible veterinary care and second, to provide owners with options. These options are tailored to the pet's particular tumor type, currently available effective treatments, and ongoing clinical trials to best improve the pet’s quality of life.

What are Clinical Studies

Clinical studies are studies designed to evaluate new or promising therapies or diagnostics for existing diseases, answer questions existing therapies, or gather specific information on rare types of diseases.

Types of Clinical Studies

A number of clinical studies are conducted by the Red Bank Veterinary Hospital Oncology Department. Clinical studies may be retrospective or prospective in nature. Retrospective studies involve utilizing information from our computerized database in regards to certain types of cancers (information on how patients present to the hospital, responses to therapy and what therapies are best). This information is generally data collection only and is performed through either RBVH-centered studies or in collaboration with other institutions/referral hospitals. The information benefits veterinary oncology as a whole in order to help better understand certain forms of cancer and to create more effective treatments.

Prospective studies are designed to evaluate existing treatments with larger numbers of patients for more meaningful evaluation or new therapies not previously examined. New therapies may involve new protocols of previously used drugs or novel agents. Novel agents are considered “experimental”; however, the effectiveness of the treatment has been proven in laboratory animals. Safety for the novel agents has been demonstrated in normal dogs or cats, and above all, the therapy is considered to be of potential benefit to the patient.

Patients that qualify and enter a prospective clinical study are monitored carefully and strict adherence to the treatment protocol is necessary. Evaluation of the patient is very dependent upon the study guidelines but generally will involve visits to Red Bank Veterinary Hospital. For many prospective clinical studies, the costs of the staging (evaluating the extent of disease), diagnosis (biopsy) and therapy (novel drug, appointments and bloodwork) may be completely covered, or at least be defrayed, by the specific study sponsor. With owner permission, samples such as blood, urine, and/or tumor may be obtained to aid researchers in gaining additional information to benefit present and future cancer patients.

Working Together

Many naturally occurring cancers in pet animals serve as “spontaneous tumor models” as they resemble human cancers Understanding these cancers provides meaningful information for cancer research to benefit both man and animals. RBVH collaborates with the Animal Clinical Investigations Network (www.animalci.com), Pediatric Hematology/Oncology Program at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey (www.cinj.org/peds/index.htm), the Broad Institute at MIT (www.broad.mit.edu/mammals/dog/donate.html), the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and many leading Veterinary Universities/Referral Hospitals. Results of these collaborative efforts have been presented at veterinary oncology meetings and been published in the veterinary literature. All are designed to help improve the quality of life of our patients.

How a Clinical Trial May Help Your Pet

We offer a number of studies evaluating state-of-the-art approaches to managing cancer. For additional information, please feel free to contact Red Bank Veterinary Hospital at (732) 747-3636. A member of our Oncology Department would be happy to discuss whether an available study would benefit your pet.

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